VietNamNet Bridge – Information technology and communication (IT) is considered a key economic sector. Attaching special attention to IT, Vietnam’s brainpower will be shining, said Minister of Information and Communication Le Doan Hop at the conference held in Hanoi on March 10 discussing the measures to implement the project on turning Vietnam into an IT power.

Quickening steps to keep pace with the world

Speaking at the conference, Nguyen Ngoc Duong, Director of the IT Department under the Ministry of Information and Communication (MOIC), said that enterprises in the IT sectors are still leading enterprises in terms of growth rate. “IT is a sector that Vietnam has great potentials to develop and keep up with regional countries and other countries in the world,” Duong said.

Nguyen Manh Hung, Deputy General Director of Viettel, said: “If we set up the goal of popularizing broadband Internet after 10 years, we will come back to a middle country in the world. I think that we should still set up the goal of popularizing broadband Internet, we need to run faster by five years”.

Addressing the current big problem that Vietnam is lacking a qualified labor force for the IT sector, Nguyen Duc Chinh, General Director of Global CyberSoft, suggested that Vietnam should use foreign IT experts and build up training centers. He said that it is necessary to have an organization that can help Vietnamese IT companies approach international IT companies.

Many enterprises also made suggestions to perfect the current legal framework on IT development. Especially, they call for the special support from the government and MOIC for the IT sector to develop. For example, the State should establish a special committee in charge of implementing the project on building up IT power; establish a consultancy council to work as an independent and voluntary organization.

The State should also take the responsibility of protecting the online assets of enterprises.  Participants cited cases where some online newspapers were hacked recently, which caused worries to foreign investors.

“MOIC should state that it will protect assets that enterprises have built up on the internet,” said Nguyen Thanh Nam, former Deputy General Director of the Corporation for Financing Technologies FPT.

Enterprises have voiced the same proposals on land tax and personal income tax remission for IT enterprises for 10 years.

Nguyen Ngoc Duong, Director of the IT Department, said that enterprises should go ahead with merger and acquisition (M&A) deals in order to form big enterprises that are capable enough of reaching out to the world market.

According to Nguyen Manh Hung from Viettel, the telecom company will rely on outward investments as the main driving force for development. Hung said that Viettel needs to build up a methodical investment strategy on making outward investments and suggested that the government needs to spend more money on IT. One of the first important works for now is to successfully develop an e-government.

Bringing into play five big advantages

Minister of MOIC Le Doan Hop emphasized that building Vietnam into an IT power is the task of all agencies, enterprises and people. Hop believes that Vietnam has five advantages that make the plan realistic.

Most IT enterprises have high growth rates which should be seen as a good driving force to develop. They quickly renovate and adapt to changes in the world thanks to their deep global integration. The specific characteristics of the IT sector allows its enterprises to more easily acquire new and advanced things. Especially, the leaders in the IT sectors are young and  have a high level of intelligence and responsibility. The most important advantage, according to Hop, is that the IT sector is developing in a context in which the legal framework has been perfected with clear development orientations.

In 2010, the total turnover of telecom and Internet service providers was 162,120 billion dong, an increase of 21 percent over 2009. Meanwhile, the IT industrial turnover reached over 16 billion. A software industry has taken shape in Vietnam with a very high growth rate of 33 percent per annum.

Tran Dong